15mm SciFi Battle Report - NAC vs. Nasty Suits and Grav Tanks

A few weeks back I set up a 15mm sci-fi game for the Fawcett crowd, and managed to get Conscript Mike F. to bring out one of his many armies to take on my GZG NAC force.

I set up a pretty simple scenario - three objectives, random game length, the side that controls two out of three objectives, wins. The twist was that each side had a unit of field engineers and if that unit controlled the "sludge tanks" objective (above), it was worth extra victory points.

A second objective was placed near the engineering buildings on one flank...

... and the third, in the shantytown on the other flank.

Mike came out in force with some very cool tooled-up battlesuits. They had flamethrowers too...

...much to the dismay of my troopers in the woods.

Meanwhile, my engineers were getting ready to rush the all-important objective when their truck got blown up.

Tanks were racing hither and yon. Mike had concentrated on the other two objectives and left the shantytown to the NAC.

Even flank shots at Mike's tank couldn't do anything more than immobilize it.

On the other flank, NAC infantry moved to avenge their roasted comrades.

Standoff in the centre.

NAC controls the shantytown objective.

NAC forces were kept off the middle objective when their tank was blown sky-high.

I think the game actually ended in a draw when random game length ended suddenly. One more turn and Mike would've had a clear win as the NAC had not much left to stop him. But thet's why we have random game length I guess!

Thanks to to the guys for coming out and to Mike for bringing out his toys. I wish I'd gotten more pics of them - especially the suits, as they were very cool and as Mike pointed out, reminiscent of the human battlesuits in "Animatrix: Second Renaissance".

Shout-Out to Kromlech and Meeplemart

Several weeks ago I was on a business trip to Toronto and stopped in at the new and improved Meeplemart. An unbelievable store - by all means try to get there if you're ever in the GTA.

Anyway, they carry a vast array of miniatures including the very cool Orks from Polish atelier Kromlech. So I took the opportunity to pick up their excellent Ork Pilot, a cool Field Chirurgeon (aka Painboy) and the Ork Operator and Goliath Mine (a pastiche of the German remote-controlled demolition vehicle from WW2).

Unfortunately the Goliath kit was missing its tracks, which I hadn't noticed until I got back home. So I emailed Kromlech and heard back from the boss, Artur Sek, who promised to send replacement parts.

Yesterday I got a tiny parcel from Kromlech in the mail, containing TWO sets of Goliath tracks and a bonus figure - a Gobbo Overseer!

So "bravo" to Kromlech for awesome customer service and to Meeplemart for carrying their stuff in the first place!

40K Battle Report - First Foray into Heresy

Well, as every reader of the blog well knows, Horus Heresy fever has bit us hard for the last year or so. Byron and Greg have been madly accumulating and painting Forge World resin Space Marines of various antique specifications, and I kid myself that my vintage all-metal Howling Griffons more-or-less qualify as combatants of the 30th millennium of man. They have MKII Rhinos for Pete's sake!

Anyway, I thought it might be fun to wheel out some of these models for a game. Greg came up with the backstory:

"A group of World Eaters, with a few Sons of Horus and Death Guard, are part of a small Crusade stub force that was re-assembling and re-fitting on Toxo IV. They were waiting for new heavy equipment to be delivered - all the other fully assembled units had gone off to Istvaan already - when word of the “developments” on Istvaan arrives.

They move to seize control of the planet.

These “traitors” lack much heavy equipment, so one of their first objectives is a raid on a Planetary Defence Force armoury to steal some tanks. With the support of a lone Sicarian tank, they assault the PDF armoury - their goal will be to activate various tanks and armoured vehicles found there and get them off the table in one piece. A reaction force of Ultramarines also stationed on Toxo IV (the Howling Griffons company) arrives to block their plan."

We set up the opposing forces diagonally in deployment areas 24" apart. I chose a list from the new Forge World "Crusade" army book; two squads of 10 Marines in Rhinos, heavy weapon squad of 5 with lascannons, squad of 5 Terminators, a 7 or 8 man Destroyer squad with jump packs, and a Land Raider Armoured Proteus.

Greg and Byron lined up several giant squads of Space Marines with ridiculously broken weapon combos :-) plus a Legion Sicaran battle tank, a squad of Marines with multimeltas, some guys with Volkite Calivers (nasty), etc...

Byron did a very nice job on the Sicaran tank. Unfortunately its weaponry wasn't quite strong enough to damage the Land Raider, but that turned out not to be a huge problem...

Melta-dudes...

I advanced my line of troops (upper left) trying to refuse a flank and block the melta-goons from getting shots at my Raider. At the same time I dropped the Destroyer squad and Terminators into the backfield to try to hose off the melta guys.

This is about half of what I was facing to my front - pretty strong stuff!

I had some success against the green guys, nearly wiping out the squad, but my own forces were suffering heavily. It was a straight kill-points game so I needed to kill squads, but was falling behind...

Destroyers and Terminators were wiped out. 2 more VPs for Greg and Byron...

Greg's command squad rolled up another of my Marine squads - +1 more VP for the bad/good guys.

But a clash of Titans was imminent as my command squad disembarked from the Raider...

In the middle the two opposing commanders clashed. Artificer armour with 2+ save and the new power weapon rules (AP3) meant the combat was loooong and drawn out. My boss eventually killed Greg's, salvaging a VP for me as a warlord kill. I think they both got so tired that Greg's boss just gave up.

Gilles doing his impression of Greg's traitor warlord

In the end the Griffons got trounced, about 7VPs to 3. Volkite Calivers are nasty but the special SM Legion bolter rule (double shots) and 20-man squads are even nastier. Obviously, escalation in the form of Reaver Titans is in order...

 

Thanks to Conscripts Greg and Byron for bringing out their cool new toys and to Greg for the scenario. The fun factor of 40K is almost entirely dependent on your opponents and the spirit in which the game is played, and we are lucky to all be of similar minds on that!  

DAK 20mm Flak Gun in 15mm

Afrika Korps 2cm Flak from Battlefront - 15mm figures

 A scary little support weapon for my 15mm DAK troops - a 2cm flak gun with four crew.  The model and figures are from Battlefront. 

Not as nice as Peter Pig, but they still look the business

Of course AA weapons are pretty silly for a skirmish game, but if you are like me, you immediately see these things and imagine their sinister application to the poor ground troops.  Firing a heavy shell at a high rate of fire, weapons that do bad things to aircraft do terrible things to the ground pounders.

I did half of the crew on separate bases so they could be removed as casualties, and also so the gun itself could fit into modeled defensive positions on the table

The quality of the Battlefront castings are nowhere near the quality of the Peter Pig sculpts.  But the Battlefront castings have a quirky character all their own - they seem kind of lanky, and low on long-term hope. It looks right for the setting, even if they are not as nice at the Peter Pig figures.

Watching the skies...but likely to open fire on infantry too

The 2cm gun itself is a fine model. This sucker will make a fine objective for skirmish games, as well as a fairly horrifying participant in the ground skirmishes for rules like Chain of Command, Bolt Action, and Dallas' home-grown Blitzkrieg rules. Heads up, Desert Rats...

Mayhem at Oosterbeek - 28mm Paras vs. Waffen SS Battle Report

Last Thursday Conscript Greg suggested we roll out a 28mm WW2 battle set around Operation Market Garden. As I have both British Paratroopers and Waffen-SS that haven't been exercised in awhile, I thought this was a splendid idea, and deputised Greg to design a scenario... :-)

He obliged, and came up with a good one - a Waffen-SS armoured column is driving on the Airbourne battalion HQ in Oosterbeek. The British have sent an ambush force to destroy or slow down the Germans.

British forces are three sections of paratroopers, plus two PIAT teams, a six-pounder AT gun, and platoon command section. The Germans have two sections of infantry each in a Sdkfz.251/1, a Marder SP gun, a Panther tank (!) and a nasty Sdkfz. 7/1 tractor with mounted quad flak gun. The German objective was to exit as many vehicles as possible off the opposite short edge (top left in the photo above).

The battlefield showed evidence of previous fighting. We decided to use our home rules - Blitzkrieg! - both for ease of play and speed.

Burning Pzkpfw. Mk.IV and Sdkfz.251/1. The Germans deployed on the short edge at the top of the photo and the Brits got to deploy in "ambush" - basically, on their turn they could decide to appear anywhere on the table in area terrain at least 12" away from a German model, or if not in terrain, at least 18" from a German model, and out of sight.

The German column rolls onto the table. Hugh and I took control of the German forces while Frederick and Keegan rolled with the Paras. Our other Sdkfz.251 moved out to the left, trying to restrict British ambush deployment as much as we could.

Enemy spotted - the Panzergrenadiers jump out of their vehicle and prepare to engage the paratroopers in the wood at top.

 Paratrooper section deployed in the woods.

Meanwhile back in the column, the 7/1 with flakvierling follows up the Marder.

On the other side of the table there appeared the six-pounder which lit up the halftrack. Surviving Panzergrenadiers suffered from British rifle fire from the woods too.

The 7/1 cut around the farmhouse and moved up to engage the paras in the woodline.

SS-Panzergrenadiers prepare to make a suicidal charge against the few remaining paras in the woods.

Meanwhile, on the other flank, another section deployed next to the six-pounder (just out of sight behind the small tree at centre). It also nailed the Marder on the road.

Hugh's Panzergrenadiers suffered heavily from their fire as well.

As the clock ticked down towards the 8-turn time limit the Germans decided that it was time to get moving. The 7/1 and Panther moved at maximum speed towards their objective.

No problems for the Panther, as the only British heavy weapons that could touch it were well out of range (PIATs) or knocked out (six-pounder).

Not so the 7/1... being a softskin vehicle and open-topped it was quite vulnerable to small arms fire.

Caught in enfilade from two British units the crew and passengers (the SS command section) were wiped out by concentrated .303 fire :-(

So the Germans got one vehicle off the board in a tough slog. I really like the Blitzkrieg! rules for pick-up games like this. There's not a ton of planning required and the game rattles along well. The rules are old-skool IGO-UGO, but use a "priority" die roll so the sides can flip over as to who goes first in a turn. This can provide for enjoyable fire-and-movement assaults or conversely, a breather and momentum shift in the battle. I've been planning to clean up the ruleset for self-publication with one of those cool Web-based companies... maybe over the wintertime!